H. Michael Brewer
Crescent Springs Presbyterian
24 October 2004
STARTING IN THE RIGHT PLACE
1 Corinthians 6:19b-20a
In one of his wonderful radio monologues Garrison Keillor talks about stewardship in the Lake
Wobegon Lutheran Church. He says there’s always a lot of hemming and hawing and nobody wants
to mention money out loud. Keillor wonders if maybe it would be better if some church leader would
simply stand up and say, “It takes money to operate this church, your money. Try to remember how
much you gave last year and give a little more this year. Then add another ten percent on top of that,
because you’re a bunch of Norwegian tightwads and we really need the money.”
Maybe you’d find that approach refreshing! But with all due respect to Garrison Keillor, that’s not
stewardship; that’s fundraising. Of course, it’s true that we need money around here. Mission,
ministry, utilities, salaries, building maintenance, all that stuff costs money; you already know that. And
unless your head is in the ground you also already know that our only source for that money is the
giving of the members and friends of this congregation.
I’m not saying that stuff is unimportant. I care about our congregational income and our budget
and our resources for mission. I’m just saying that’s not stewardship, or rather it’s only one teeny,
tiny particle of stewardship. If we’re not careful in the church, we make the same mistake as the blind
man who grabs an elephant by the tail and says, “Oh, an elephant is like a rope.” That’s true as far as
it goes, but it doesn’t go very far. There’s a lot more to an elephant than its tail, and there’s a lot more
to stewardship than fundraising.
The heart of Christian stewardship is not money; it’s water—baptismal water—the water that
pours from the wounded side of Christ as he hangs on the cross, the water that washes away our
sins, gives us new birth, and plunges us into discipleship.
Have you ever used Map Quest, that computer service that gives travel directions? You have to
know two things to use Map Quest. You have to tell them where you’re going, and you have to tell
them where you’re starting. Where you begin makes a world of difference. It’s true of travel and it’s
true of Christianity.
If our starting point in stewardship is to raise $150,000 for next year’s budget, that’s fairly easy to
dodge, isn’t it? I could hold back on my commitment, wait until all the pledges are in and check the
total. Maybe my money’s not needed. Maybe the church can meet that goal without my help, in
which case I’m home free.
Or I could negotiate my portion, right? A person could say, “I don’t go to Sunday School and I
don’t have any kids, so why should I help underwrite Christian education? Come to think of it, I’m
only in worship about once a month, and they have to heat the place whether I’m there or not. If I
give ten bucks whenever I drop in, that should more than cover my share.”
Better yet, maybe somebody will die and leave the church a couple of hundred thousand dollars,
then none of us will have to give anything next year. We can just store the offering plates away for
2005!
If stewardship starts as fundraising, there are dozens of detours around that particular
responsibility. But if you begin with your baptism, then the journey is quite different. If I begin with my
baptism, then I don’t start with how much money we must raise or how much money I need to give.
Instead I start at the cross. I begin by confessing that I have been bought with a price.
That’s what Paul says to the Christians in Corinth. “You were bought with a price.” In fact, he
says it twice in the same letter, once in relation to sexual morality and once regarding Christian
freedom. Those are very different issues, but Paul invokes the same principle in both cases because
that principle applies in every area of discipleship. “You were bought with a price.”
Two ideas are intertwined there. First is the price. You were set free from guilt and death—at a
price. You were reconciled to God and given eternal salvation—at a price. You became a new
creation with a new life and new possibilities—at a price. And that price was the passion, suffering
and death of Jesus Christ, who bore your sins and mine on his innocent shoulders and offered up his
perfect life on the terrible cross. That’s the price that was paid for you—a price paid in the coinage of
betrayal, public humiliation, scourging, thorns, nails pounded through flesh and bone, and a broken
heart that cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That’s a high price, but Jesus
paid it willingly—gladly—so that you and I might be gathered back into the arms of God.
“You were bought with a price.” The second idea is that you and I as Christians have been
bought. Slavery was an accepted way of life in the 1st Century, and this is what Paul has in mind. We
have been bought and we no longer belong to ourselves; we belong to Christ. We no longer live to
please ourselves; we live to please Christ. We no longer serve our own ambitions; we serve Christ in
all things.
What makes this different from slavery is that you and I enter willingly into this relationship. Jesus
does not coerce us. We don’t have to acknowledge his sacrifice on our behalf. We don’t have to
admit his claim on our lives. We can utterly ignore what Jesus did for us. We can mutter, “No
thanks,” and turn away. We can deal with Jesus the way we handle those telephone solicitors: “I’m
really not interested.” Click! End of the story.
I do not have to be a Christian, I do not have to take the yoke of discipleship on our shoulders, I
do not have to bow my head to the baptismal waters, I don’t have to profess Jesus as my Lord and
Savior, but once I do I no longer belong to myself. I have been bought with a price, I have
acknowledged the price, and I am not my own anymore. From that day forward my will, my choices,
my possessions, my life all belong to Christ.
And shall I balk then at giving a token tenth of my paycheck? Shall I hesitate to lay down my
money for the one who laid down his life? Shall I refuse to live to the glory of the one who saved me?
If following Jesus requires commitment and sacrifice, shall I then repent my baptism and recant my
promises?
Christian stewardship is not about fundraising. Stewardship is about keeping faith, saying thank
you, and putting Christ first. Money is the smallest part of it, which means that if we fail to serve
Christ with our money, we have failed to live up to the smallest notion of discipleship.
It’s a shame babies are so cute. When we baptize Logan Matthew today, it will be hard to see
what’s really going on. It will be hard to look past the proud mom and dad, and the carefully chosen
outfit, and Logan’s yelp of surprise when the chilly water spills over his face. It will be hard to
remember that baptism is a matter of life and death, that this baptismal water is the dangerous water
of Logan’s drowning, the water in which he dies to self. And this water is the water of the womb from
which Logan is born anew to abundant and eternal life—life that is lived in Christ and through Christ
and for Christ.
There is more here than a lovely ritual. Behind the splash of water, behind a baby’s cry, behind the
old, old words, if we listen closely we will hear the voice of Christ whispering, “Logan, you are not
your own. You were bought with a price. You are mine.”
Soli Deo Gloria!